German Hosting Firm DomainFactory Hacked

DomainFactory, a Germany-based web hosting services provider of GoDaddy-owned Host Europe Group, informed customers late last week that their personal and financial information was exposed after a hacker gained access to some of its systems.

According to DomainFactory, one of the largest hosting firms in Germany, the breach occurred in late January, but the company only learned of the incident on July 3 after the hacker started disclosing samples of the stolen information on the DomainFactory forum.

The hack is still being investigated, but the attacker appears to have gained access to data such as customer name, company name, customer number, address, email address, phone number, DomainFactory phone password, date of birth, and bank name and account number.

The company says it has secured the point of entry used by the hacker, but has warned customers that the compromised information may be misused for financial fraud and other types of attacks.

Users have been instructed to change their passwords, including for their DomainFactory, DomainFactory phone, email, FTP, SSH and MySQL accounts.

According to German publication Heise, the hacker published a post on the DomainFactory forum on July 3 claiming to have gained access to one of the company’s customer databases. Both Heise and some of the impacted users have confirmed that the data appears to be legitimate.

The hacker has created the Twitter account “@NaHabedere” and claims to be from Austria. He told Heise that he breached DomainFactory in an effort to obtain information on a person who owes him money and decided to disclose the hack after the company failed to notify customers. The hacker apparently does not plan on selling or publishing the data he obtained.

DomainFactory has shut down its forum following the breach. Users have been advised to monitor their bank statements and report any suspicious activity to authorities.

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.